Outage of Microsoft services attributed to a possible attack by Anonymous Sudan

Microsoft reported a new outage on Friday after customers received error messages while trying to sign in to the Azure portal. Additionally, customers may have had difficulty trying to access the Microsoft Sign in admin center and Microsoft Intune. Despite this, the outages were mitigated within hours.

Preliminary analysis and response from Microsoft

In its preliminary analysis, Microsoft attributed the outages to a spike in network traffic to the sites, which impacted the company's ability to handle traffic. In response, Microsoft implemented load balancing and self-recovery techniques to restore services. In parallel, the company was already investigating reports of a DDoS attack by a hacktivist group known as Anonymous Sudan.

The claims of Anonymous Sudan

The Anonymous Sudan group has claimed responsibility for a series of outages affecting OneDrive and Microsoft 365 services, including Outlook, SharePoint and Teams. Microsoft announced on Friday that it plans to release a post-crash review within three days.

Anonymous Sudan and its threatening activities

Over the past week, researchers have signaled that Anonymous Sudan is becoming a growing threat globally, particularly with the shift from politically motivated attacks to extortion. The group has been linked to a previous attack on the SAS airline. A Microsoft spokesperson said on Monday that the company lacked further information, but will provide an update if new details emerge.